323 results about "Project planning" patented technology

PCT No. PCT/EP95/03289 Sec. 371 Date Dec. 10, 1998 Sec. 102(e) Date Dec. 10, 1998 PCT Filed Aug. 18, 1995 PCT Pub. No. WO97/07472 PCT Pub. Date Feb. 27, 1997The inventive concept comprises a system platform for a synergistic, role modular work process environment. A work process object (WPO) (1001) is created, residing in a data base, and stored in a memory of the process and project management computer system (1030). All data concerning the process and project management are reported to said work process object (WPO) (1001) and said work process object (WPO) (1001) is used as a common data base. According to the inventive concept, each view must be supported by a specific workplace, represented by digital data and enforcing the rules for the specific role. A work process information model supports the dynamic definition and use of a data base object representing a work process, boch in its process and project planning modes and its execution. According to the inventive concept, one object supports simultaneously all modes delimited by dynamically moving boundaries. Workplace implementation enforces over-all rules for each role in the inventive system.

The invention comprises management of programs and mega-programs with emphasis on project level and above in a hierarchy that enables aggregation of information navigating up, and breakdown of details navigating down the hierarchy. It provides the flexibility of combining real-time management of budget with multiple editions, on call, asset tracking and capacity management of people and non-people resources within the same structure, vendor management, and real-time cross-program interlinking of dependencies and business considerations. The invention enables invocation of each function at every node in the hierarchy and localizes the related information at the invoking source. The functions encompass management of action items, status reports, approvals, meetings/decision making, issues, risks, change management and attachments with built in workflows that enable interactive collaboration and action triggering within the system and across external systems through condition and threshold setting. The universal structure enables management of organization layers and project initiatives.

A method and associated systems for automatically identifying a risk that a staffing resource identified by a proposed project-staffing plan will be unavailable. A computerized project-management tool, in response to receiving a proposed project plan, requests, receives, and aggregates information about other past, present, and expected projects and about expected supplies of, and competing demands for, staffing resources required by the proposed plan. The tool infers patterns, business rules, and trends from the received information, with which it adjusts the proposed project's planned start date, expected availabilities of required staffing resources, and expected competition for staffing resources. The tool then determines a likelihood that a sufficient supply of each of the plan's required staffing resources, as adjusted, will be available at the required times, as adjusted. If the risk is too high, the user may fine-tune the proposed plan by repeating the preceding steps with varying project parameters.

A system for estimating and generating project plans for implementing packaged software applications, the system includes: a view layer configured to act as a user interface for user inputs and system outputs; a model and control layer configured to implement rules based on a series of estimation and implementation models, and to perform calculations of project plan details and project plan schedules; an estimation knowledge base layer configured to hold and derive the series of estimation and implementation models; and wherein the system for estimating and generating multi-dimensional project plans for implementing packaged software applications is carried out over networks comprising: the Internet, intranets, local area networks (LAN), and wireless local area networks (WLAN).

Methods and systems consistent with the present invention provide an integrated process modeling and project planning tool that allows an enterprise affiliate to improve a workflow that models a process. To improve the workflow, the tool initiates execution of a plan created from the workflow such that an instance of the process is at least partially performed, receives a characteristic about the performance of the plan, and modifies the workflow to reflect the characteristic so that a subsequent plan created from the modified workflow has the received characteristic.

A system for calculating financial benefit estimations and generating reports for multi-dimensional project plans for implementing packaged software applications, the system includes: a view layer configured to act as a user interface for user inputs and system outputs; a model and control layer configured to implement rules based on a series of estimation and implementation models, and to perform calculations to determine financial benefits of implementing multi-dimensional project plans; an estimation knowledge base layer configured to hold and derive the series of estimation and implementation models; and wherein the system for generating financial benefit estimations and reports for the implementation of packaged software applications is carried out over networks comprising: the Internet, intranets, local area networks (LAN), and wireless local area networks (WLAN).

A system is used for the creation, maintenance, and management of an overall project schedule, of individual project member schedules, and of project task assignments over a network. The system comprises three editors accessed through a web browser to perform the various tasks by members of a project. Information is passed between a web server and web browser and a database is used to maintain all information. The project manager can use a task assignment editor to assign tasks to individual project members. The project manager can use a project schedule editor to initially create the project schedule and to show the overall project schedule. After the project schedule is created, each project member can create their own member schedule using a member schedule editor, containing tasks related to the project schedule. After project members complete a task, the project member updates the member's schedule via the member schedule editor.

In the automation of project risk identification, various qualitative and quantitative measures are combined to report a project's risk level, areas, and mitigation in an automatic and objective manner. The software package includes a risk assessment and report framework and a risk engine, a portfolio analysis, a project plan validator, an integrated project management office toolkit and process asset library, and an integrated skills tracking, locating and availability module with a skills engine.

Systems and techniques for entry and presentation of project planning information, showing activities in their geographic context. Information relating to activities and groupings of activities is entered, updated and presented. Information associated with one or more groupings of activities is associated with a graphical icon, with the appearance of the icon changing in response to changes in the associated information. The icon is placed in a graphical display, with the graphical display showing geographic information, such as a map, and the icon being placed in a map location showing the location of the activities associated with the icon. The graphical display maintains links to the information associated with the icon so that updating the information changes the appearance of the icon, calling attention to changes in their geographic context.

The invention relates to a system and a method for virtual on line process interfacing for distributed engineering systems in automation technology based on a remote desktop protocol. A communication channel is established from any client within the system to a server via the RDP by means of online access. Process data and project planning data are tunneled via the channel. Quasi peer-to-peer communication between random clients in the system is made possible by means of routing on the server.

Embodiments of the invention relate to asset lifecycle management. A method includes assessing a current health condition of a plurality of assets that are managed by a plurality of different entities. Predictive analytics are applied to determine a predicted future health condition of the assets. Prescription options for the assets are determined based on the current health condition and the predicted future health condition of the assets. Each prescription option specifies an asset, a timeframe, an expected cost, and an expected future health condition of the asset. Spatial and temporal analytics are performed to combine individual prescription options into a unified project. The unified project includes prescription options that specify assets that are managed by at least two of the entities. A timeframe to execute the unified project is determined based on financial constraints and spatial constraints. The unified project plan is output.

Embodiments of this invention relate generally to updating a project plan in accordance with an input. A user may have a limited set of privileges to update the project plan compared to a manager. The manager may provide a threshold value relating to a type of change that may be made to a master version project plan. Next, the user may access the master project plan, and provide an input relating to a proposed change. From the change, a change value may be derived, and the change value may be compared to the threshold value to determine whether the change value violates the threshold value. If the change value violates the threshold value, a change exception may be generated, and the manager may be notified that the proposed change requires review. If the change value does not violate the threshold value, then the master project plan may be immediately updated.

A computer-implemented method and system for validating a task of a plurality of tasks of a project. A computing application executes routines to automatically identify errors associated with one or more tasks. The routines generate exception reports that facilitate correction of the errors via user-determined selections of actions or via corrective actions automatically displayed by the computing application. The error identification facilitates validation of project elements including milestones, dependencies and deliverables, key work products, tasks in a work breakdown structure (WBS), predecessors and successors in the WBS, resources, work and labor rates, links between project plans, and an update of a project. Further, the error identification facilitates an analysis of schedule conflicts between give and get tasks.

A planning system for the planning and management of multiple projects includes an input (122) for entering project information and task information associated with each project. The project information identifies each project as being of a mandatory, nonmandatory, or ad hoc type that arises intermittently and is subject to change. The task information describes each task to be performed by users of the system and an estimated duration of each task. Also included are a work hour calculator (124), an allocation engine (128), a schedule preparation engine (130), a time tracking system (132), and a time imbalance calculator (134). An allocation modification engine (136) reestimates the time required for completing each project based on the actual time spent and current status for each project and reallocates time to eliminate any time imbalance detected by the time imbalance calculator.

A processing device used to support communications between users of the collaboration system is operative to capture occurrence of at least one event defined in accordance with a project plan. Information regarding each such captured event is stored and an activity report based at least in part upon the stored event information is provided by the processing device to at least one other user of the collaboration system. Report annotations may be associated with the activity report. A controller within the collaboration system is employed to route the activity report (and any associated annotations) to other users of the collaboration system. The recipients of the activity report may submit their own annotations to the controller for association with the activity report. Furthermore, the controller may operate to aggregate the activity report with other activity reports.

A project management system is integrated with a workflow engine to provide automatic coordination of project tasks and workflow processes. The workflow engine provides support for defining logical expressions that determine a path of execution for the defined workflow tasks. In addition to composition capabilities, the workflow engine may execute and track the defined processes. The project management system provides a platform for defining the project plan that includes tasks and resources. Tasks are annotated defining their behavior and implementation and exported to the workflow system. The workflow system substitutes project tasks with the appropriate workflow activities and provides feedback upon execution of the activities.

A web-based data processing system is used in a Business-to-Business (B2B) exchange for providing one-stop manufacturing solutions. In a B2B exchange, this system provides a moderator desktop for project planning, quoting, coordination and supervisory of all web-based business transactions from mechanical/electronic design and production of first article, tooling, production, financing, insurance, warehousing to end-product delivery. Also, this system provides a machine web communication desktop for web-based maintenance and support to members, process lines, systems and machines, and web-based resource sharing to "pay as you go" members and "flat fee" members. Likewise, this system provides dedicated desktops for other participants in the B2B exchange for direct and critical communication, collaboration and commerce transaction with moderator and machine web communication center. Said participants include Customers, Process lines/systems/machines, Strategic Partners, Suppliers and Management team/account/audit/administrator. This system also distributes and manages Request for Quotations (RFQs) for said B2B exchange in NAFTA, Asia Pacific and Europe data servers. Besides, the web-based data processing system provides a direct communication with a collaborative platform. Said collaborative platform may be integrated with existing web-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM).

Methods and systems consistent with the present invention allow a user to create a storage hierarchy definition in association with a workflow that models a process, to generate a plan from the workflow that reflects an instance of the process, and to generate a container in accordance with the storage hierarchy definition when the plan is generated from the workflow. The container may then be used to store an artifact that is used or produced by the plan in accordance with methods and systems of the present invention.

A computer-implemented system that transforms one or more project plans to create a graphical project view. The appearance of the project view is determined by a default style, one or more style rules applied to each task or milestone in the chart, or both. Once the project view has been created, users may alter its appearance by changing the default style settings, modifying the data-driven style rules, or by manually changing the appearance of selected tasks and milestones to deviate from the default style or style rules. As project plans are updated, the project view may be refreshed to create a new snapshot, or to replace an existing snapshot. As data is refreshed, the system will preserve manual style changes, and will also reapply style rules, which may result in a change to the project view's appearance. Snapshots may have different appearances, based on rules and manual changes.

A method of providing industrial status views reflecting a schedule for industrial project plan generated by a project schedule planning and management application includes uploading the industrial project plan schedule, uploading CAD drawing files comprising a physical layout of resources, structural elements and equipment units included in the project plan schedule, extracting project data from the uploaded project schedule and CAD drawing files and generating Plan progress views that reflect expected completion percentages of intended project tasks and operations over a fixed industrial project timeline, according to the plan schedule, as well as Comparison progress views depicting a difference between the expected and actual project progress.

Methods and apparatuses are described for creating and using full-kit tasks, monitoring the progress of full-kit tasks, determining full-kit dates, checking compliance of release conditions associated with full-kit tasks, and/or computing and reporting full-kit task delays. A full-kit task can be used in the project plan to represent the preparations that are required or recommended to be performed before executing a set of tasks. The full-kit task can be a zero-duration task that has a full-kit date and that includes a list of items which need to be completed by the full-kit date. The full-kit task is capable of being in one of the following states: not started, in progress, released, and completed. In some embodiments, the set of tasks associated with the full-kit task can only be started if the full-kit task is either in the released state or the completed state.

A system and method of tracking action items in an enterprise data processing environment. The method includes receiving, by a client from a server, an action item that includes a location. The method further includes performing a check-in, by the client, at the location related to the action item. The method further includes performing a check-out, by the client, related to the action item. The method further includes changing, by the client, the status of the action item. In this manner, a database of action items and statuses may be developed for more effective business collaboration and business management.